Wally Lamb
Wally Lamb is the author of
She's Come Undone and
I Know This Much Is True. Both were featured as selections of
Oprah's Book Club. Lamb is the recipient of the 1998 Governor's Arts Award, State of Connecticut, a past recipient of the NEA grant for fiction and is a Missouri Review William Peden fiction prize winner.
He was the director of the Writing Center at the
Norwich Free Academy,
Norwich, Connecticut from 1989-1998, and is currently an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the
University of Connecticut's English Department. He holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Education from the University of Connecticut and an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College. Lamb lives in Connecticut with his wife and three sons.
Lamb's first novel is the story of overweight Dolores Price. We follow her from the age of 13 into adulthood where she learns the importance of the love in people around her. This was Lamb's first #1 New York Times bestseller,
She's Come Undone (Pocket Books; 1992) which also hit USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly and other national bestseller list. She's Come Undone was chosen as a finalist for the 1992 Los Angeles Times Book Awards' Art Seidenbaum Prize for first fiction. It was named a notable book of the year by numerous publications, including The New York Times Book Review and People. The book was also chosen by the Oprah Winfrey Show as a "Book Club" selection in early 1997, and is one of the bestselling titles chosen for that honor.
His second book,
I Know This Much is True (ReganBooks), was released in June 1998. It is the story of the Birdsey twins, one normal, the other a
schizophrenic. This novel follows the narrative of Dominick who cares for his brother Thomas. There are alternate narrators in this novel that make up much of the back story. This was also a selection for
Oprah's Book Club.
Taking the role of editor, Lamb took several stories written by women in prison and compiled them into one book. Lamb has been volunteering at the prison for several years.
